There Are No Limits
by b r caker
Summary: My first work! Set in the world of The Hellbound Heart, this is the brief tale of Hendry, a disillusioned, dysfunctional man's encounter with a hellish puzzle box and the creatures it calls. Please leave comments, good or bad. Anything not Clive Barker's is my own intellectual property. Very mature content, so be warned.


The world around Hendry was changing; the floor a little less solid, the wet tiled walls of the bathroom a little less real than they had been just minutes before.

The ceiling, now dizzyingly close, now far above his head, was in two, three, four places at once; an impossibility - no, _another_ impossibility in a reality that till now had given him nothing but dead ends, boundaries and absolutes.

And yet now, he knew the euclidian geometries of another world were waiting for him and, though he could not see them yet, it would not be long before the Blessed Mysteries were revealed to him in all their orgasmic glory. He sensed the world lurch around him as it began to lose the fight against the coming forces. He felt the yolk of reality falling from the here and now.

Spurred on he turned the box over again, looking for anything that might bring the Eternal Joys closer. He was eager not to waste this chance. His bowels loosened themselves unconsciously, uncontrollably, and he shifted position on the toilet, glad that he had taken the Calamite's advice as to where and how to summon the Welcomers. The pan's contents sloshed beneath him, his excrement, his blood, and the photograph of him as a child, and the third valentine card he'd ever received, all exactly as requested and whirlpooling together in the bowl; the past, the present, the future. Offerings to the Gods of Gluttonous Starvation.

The future. Whatever that might be. He was not scared; far from it. He was excited, expectant. His whole physical being sensed the imminent change, like a womb-locked baby coiled and tensed for birth, waiting for the breaking waters. Waiting, waiting for release and Revelation.

The splatter into porcelain continued unabated; it smelt like battery acid. The diet he had endured religiously for the last seven days (the caviar boiled in dog urine, the fish guts in pasta, the flies born in the dung of dead infants, dipped in strawberry yogurt and eaten alive and buzzing) had evidently had the right effect. He hoped so, as otherwise the trials and tribulations of the week would have been for nothing. The skinned dogs, the abuses, the abstinations.

And the worst part? Hoping against hope that the police would come for him only _after_ he had slipped from this world into another. The dead child was in itself not a regret to him; not when there had been so many others. But the disappearance had raised questions and caused suspicion. Even now, as the Welcomers approached from unseen destinations, other, more worldy authorities could also be closing in. _Would_ also be closing in, he thought. He had moved into the bedsit just two days before the baby's abduction. Someone had seen him bringing the small, soft defenceless bundle into his flat, had seen the blood on his clothes. So it was only a matter of time.

His bowel movement stopped, his innards temporarily exhausted of content. Even this, he realised, was symbolic of the shedding of his old life in preparation of the new. He shuddered, his guts spasming in their emptiness, and he renewed his concentration on the box.

It was heavier now, he thought. Or maybe his sweat was making it harder to hold. He looked around at the small bathroom. The moisture dripping down the walls; the room so damp that the floor was slippery. How bad the condensation was in that room was the first thing he'd noticed when he moved in. He'd kept the window open all hours, he'd let the heating run all day and all night, and all to no effect. Whatever he did, the walls, the ceiling, the floor remained slick and pallid, the towel wet, the toilet roll sodden. His eyes skipped over random toiletries and bric-a-brac; toothpaste and other mundane effects. Close, suffocating, all of it. The limitless expanses of the Greater Realities still frustratingly out of reach.

From outside, sounds of urgency. A gathering commotion and, he realised with sudden dread, police sirens, not far off and getting closer.

_No_, he thought. Not now I've come this far.

His hands worked with renewed vigour at the box; but even here, it seemed, he was to be frustrated. His fingers slid and slipped across it's surfaces, unequal to the task of undoing it's secrets. He hadn't realised it would be this hard to open. Eight hours. Eight solid, frustrating hours of turning it, pressing it, shaking it and cursing it. He was making progress of sorts, yes, but it was slow going for someone who suddenly had so little time to spare.

In exasperation he let it drop to the hard tiled floor at his feet.

He stared up at the ceiling, knowing there were Heavens behind it, hidden but very much real. If he were caught before his work was done, he would never see them.

Dismayed, he saw that the ceiling had steadied itself, no longer ignoring the laws of physics. The mysteries were receding, he realised. Despite his best efforts the Gorge were forsaking him at his hour of need. Without physical contact with the summoning agent, the Calamite had told him, the links between this world and the next were tenuous and fragile. The box was that link, and it needed human contact. Now that he no longer held it, the otherworldly dimensions that he had longed for would fade quickly back into oblivion. He _knew_ this. He had been told specifically not to break contact with it at any point, but his own body was failing him.

The sirens were _definitely_ drawing closer. Everything was going wrong, his preparation unravelling.

He had only two options. Run, and hide, and maybe evade capture for a day or two, or stay and solve the puzzle. Both options carried risk. The former, of missing his best chance to escape the world he hated. And he would have to prepare the rituals all over again. The latter, of getting caught before the puzzle had been solved. Yet if he ran now, he could lie low and try again. If he stayed, he was guaranteed safety - _if_ he could open the box in time.

He was suddenly aware of just how much the contents of the toilet stank, his senses no doubt heightened by his rising panic. He wanted to flush, but he knew the Welcomers would not approve. They had required certain acts of faith and they were not to be trifled with. No open windows or doors; the area must be closed off to the world. No natural light; hence the corrugated cardboard jammed awkwardly up against the tiny window, darker brown and soft where the all-pervading damp had caught.

The sirens were very close now, maybe just seconds away. He could not, _would_ not let the police catch him. Not when all the crimes he had not yet had time or resource to commit lay ahead of him. And were they so bad? A handful of children, that was all. And not all of them had died.

He thought about the first one. How she had cried, and how he had held her and where he had put his hands. Instinctively his fingers mirrored his thoughts. She had struggled at first, when his left hand covered her mouth and his right hand moved down towards hidden places; he remembered the first one very well. How in the end he silenced her, his hands just _so _around her neck; and her ordeal was not so bad in the grand scheme of things.

And the second, an older girl, a crier if ever there was one. But his hands knew what to do, and she didn't cry for long.

And so the third, and the fourth, and so on.

He found himself lost in memories, his murderings and his abuses, and though he was hardly aware, whatever old favourite pastimes he imagined, his hands played out on the box. The way he pushed his thumb slowly but forcefully into girl five's eye, like _so_. The way he squeezed girl three's throat, like _so_. His digits remembered too.

And with every remembered cruelty, his fingers stroked the box, kneaded the box, squeezed the box; but they were no longer trying to _open_ the box. Instead, their movements were echoes of past atrocities played out on it's glistening surfaces. His thumb moved _thus_ across the top face, scarcely aware of what it was doing. His right index finger, curling around it's back, pressed instinctively into the left face _here_ and found pliance and movement where before there had been none.

He did not know it, but his re-enacted crimes were even now bringing the Wonders closer. And even as the Greater Realities revealed themselves above his bowed head (the ceiling finally giving up the ghost), and the police hammered upon his door, his eyes saw not a box, but a victim. It was his sole focus.

And that is why, when They arrived, he did not even realise until they spoke.

_"Why?"_

He looked up from his concentrations, suddenly surprised and disorientated. He couldn't quite see who or what addressed him. Blurred, dark figures, clammy and pale. More and less than human. Confused, he looked down at the box; it was solved, though he did not understand how.

Random ignitions of imagination brought him abruptly back to lucidity. A church, a bag of marbles, a wedding, a woman singing. And then a startling, split second image; a vast bird under a cold sun, featherless, skinless, wings broken, croaking and cackling, nesting in a tree with bones for branches and red, wet things for leaves. A ruined thing alone, king in a forest of rot.

And then the vision was gone, replaced by the same patient question.

"Why?"

Hendry stared, his mouth silently repeating the word. He rubbed his eyes, hoping to bring the newcomers into focus, but they refused. Were there three of them? Five? Eight? He couldn't tell. The bathroom was too small for even two, and yet here they were, just as the Calamite had promised. Reality was deserting him, the laws of physics no longer by his side. _This is what I want_, he reminded himself, but his bladder ached, and his stomach groaned. He lost control of his bowels again, but if the creatures noticed they did not change their countenance.

"Why did you call us?" The voice was female. Gentle, soothing.

He considered the question for a moment, and answered as best he could. "I need to get away," he said, thinking of the sirens as much as anything else. He realised that he was in the presence of higher beings, and that he was sitting on the toilet, naked. That too had been an act of faith. He was too in awe to feel ridiculous. "I... can't stay here," he said. "I can't let them catch me -"

Another flash silenced him; spines breaking and folding, fusing and snapping, over and over again, skin blossoming and blooming with wounds. Blood. Semen. Breasts exposed and sliced open and peeled back like banana skins, their owner screeching at the spectacle. He gasped; and the vignette was gone, leaving an after image that burned his heart. He shut his eyes and put a feeble, shaking hand on the toilet wall to steady himself. It was further away than he remembered, but no less damp.

The creatures ignored his discomfort. "That's why you summoned us? To _escape_ imprisonment?" There was something akin to irony in the question.

"Please," Hendry begged, the words tumbling out, the images still fresh in his mind. "You don't know what would happen to me in prison. They think I'm a child molester," he added. "I'm not. I'm not."

"Go on," said the female. The voice was coaxing. Requesting, but not demanding, more details. He hesitated all the same. He had precious little time to talk; he certainly didn't want to go into details. He wanted to be away from here. Quickly.

"Children were easy to get hold of." He was surprised at his own confession. "But that's all. Nothing else. You don't know what they'll do to me if they find me here..." His eyes remained firmly closed. He did not want any further visions.

The sirens were all around, the hammering at the door rising to a crescendo. It would be broken down in seconds. Once again, the creatures seemed not to notice. "So you want to come with us."

He considered his response. His resolve was gone, his initial desperation now cooling into something very very much like doubt. He surprised himself with his answer. "Yes," he finally nodded, at odds with himself. "I want to come with you. I want to see the hidden worlds."

He knew the female was weighing up his reply, regarding him with her punctured, lidless eyes. "And when your crimes are forgotten, what then?" She asked. "Will you want to come back here?"

"No. I want to see the Mysteries," he answered. "I don't want to come back here."

His words lacked conviction, but the female came closer, and against his own will he opened his eyes to see her; the scars, the disfigurement, the weeping modifications. "Very well," she said, and there was approval in her voice. Her hand stroked his sweating, fevered forehead. There was no compassion there; just the expert touch of a cold-blooded butcher upon a piece of meat. An abattoir queen in a lunatic land. He flinched. Up close, he could see the needles driven under her fingernails; he could feel them as they skipped across his face.

The contact brought another image dancing to his eyes, fleeting and nebulous - something resembling a horse, or a cow, or a dog, screaming with horribly human laughter as its legs were pulled off and it's genitals were crushed. Carved up and segmented and filleted but still laughing and laughing and laughing as the bolt went into it's brain. He reeled away, his forehead cracking into contact with the wet tiled wall to the right. He wanted nothing more than to shut the visions out.

The other Welcomers came forward. He couldn't focus on them, or maybe his eyes were now too scared to do so. _She_ had touched him, and that was the bond. His fate was sealed. He drew his knees up close to his chest and sat foetal-like on the toilet, arms clutched around his shins, vomiting up dog piss and caviar, unable to either stop or control it.

The creatures stood around him, unphased by his behaviour. "He said he comes willingly," the female declared. "The conditions have been met."

He closed his eyes again and prayed, and told himself that it would be alright, and that maybe this was for the best. But he did not believe it. He thought of the ruined photograph churning in the toilet bowl beneath him, taken when he was six years old, on the beach, sunburnt, squinting into the sun. To think of such innocence, such wasted, pointless innocence. If only he could go back; change who that little boy became. And the valentines card; _lots_ _of_ _huggles_ _and_ _cuggles, Janey. _It had a bear holding a fluffy cuddly heart on the front. He had never thrown it away, cherished it always. His third ever valentines card. The girl had died three years later in a car crash. Twenty years old. He had promised himself to keep it always; and yet despite all that history here it was, sodden, trashed, lost forever in a foetid toilet.

The sum of his life, reduced to _this_.

He knew it was too late to turn back. Even as the police gained entrance and stormed in through the narrow hallway, he was leaving them behind. He was vaguely aware of shouting, and curses, and barked commands, but they were not for him. Not anymore. He was somewhere else now, quite beyond their reach.

And the Welcomers took him from himself and from his fettered, narrow experience and brought him naked and shitstained, fearful and scared into their world of delights, and they patiently and diligently showed him everything he had ever wanted to see, no matter how much he begged otherwise, and when the agonies allowed he thought back to the wonderful years of ignorant bliss, and he wept with regret and loss.

In the world he left behind, life moved on almost normally. The police came and went, angry and disappointed that they had missed their prey, and in time new tenants moved in. The toilet was unblocked, the ceiling repaired (badly) and the tiled floor was scrubbed, disinfected and scrubbed again until all the stains came out.

But the new tenants did not stay; the bathroom was perpetually damp, and condensation trickled down the walls regardless of ventilation or heating. It was unnatural. It made them feel uneasy. And so they left, and new tenants arrived.

They too would leave, citing the damp in the bathroom. Plumbers could do nothing, for all the pipes were sound. Plasterers could do nothing, for all the replastered walls grew mould and mildewed flowerings the minute they were skimmed. And neither plaster nor paint ever dried.

It was an irony that would not be lost on Hendry; for he knew what that dampness was, and what it meant. And he knew that, if any one of those tenants were to taste the drips coursing down the wet moulting walls, that they would taste salt water; and if they were to wonder, he could tell them what they were.

They were tokens, signs, omens. The damp patches, the water marks, the drips. Warnings from his own future self that he had blissfully ignored, even as he moved in on a late January morning, even as he prepared the rituals throughout February, even as his hands picked and pulled at the box and the Hollow came for him on a cold afternoon in March. They were a taste of things to come, and the last physical connection between his new life and the old.

Sobbed from a million voids away, unlimited and unstoppable, they were the only things that informed the Muted World that he had ever lived: filtered through a bedrock of eternal torment and pooling at his last worldly abode, lost and looking for some human comfort; unconsoleable, unendurable, memories of a life now forfeit.

Yes; if those tenants were to wonder, he could tell them what they were.

He would show them his flayed, blasted body; the evidence of agonies far beyond endurance, accumulated over unguessable years. He would show them his ripped, wounded flesh, still ripe and tender despite all the horrors. And he would show them, if he still had them, the valentines card, and the photo of him as a little boy on the beach, bothered by wasps and sunburn.

Yes; if those tenants were to wonder, he would show them all these things, and then they would understand the source, the wellspring of the wetness in that cramped and dingy bathroom.

And then maybe, in a tiny act of kindness, one would take a tissue, or a sponge, to the dampness on the walls, and wipe away his tears.


End file.
